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Marvel's Phase 4

bob

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Sméagol Newbie

Sméagol

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Yeah I'm hyped.Too bad we need to sit out 2 other films first. :heh: I'm kidding, I'm slightly warming up to Eternals, and to lesser extent Shang Chi.

Apparently the leaked trailer from yesterday showed some other stuff, but I haven't seen it. This was apparently terrible footage from production shots, so I won't bother with it, glad I waited for the official one.

Edit:

Don't think I've commented on the series here. I've seen them all in almost 1 go. I don't think they're top quality, and I'm kind of annoyed I'm going to have to see them to get the full MCU story (although I've missed other stuff as well). I like 'm somewhat, but I don't think they work as standalone series or seasons. Wanda had some cool ideas, I genuinely laughed at the comedy bits. I loved the vibe of Loki the most. But I don't think any of them are particularly well written. Loki.. that's not a way to end the season. Cool setup for future MCU stuff? Sure, but an incredible annoying last episode, that was basically one big post/mid credit scene. I don't like a lot of character arcs. Falc+soldier was the worst for me, I don't like what they did to Sharon Carter, that makes no sense. New Captain America was also such a cool idea, but I don't think they got the most out of that character. Same for that terrorist group. I liked getting to see more of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, but I wasn't impressed by the overall story or the other character developments. In Wanda, Monica Rambeau's introduction felt forced and I didn't care about her at all.

I'll give Hawkeye a chance, as well as Loki S2 and the other new shows, but if they all fail to impress me I can imagine simply dropping watching the shows at some point. I'll just read the spoilers. So far, they've mostly been good for setting other stuff up, and some good character development / background info for most of the main characters.

Speaking of Hawkeye though, I must be in the minority who's seen Valentina's introduction in the proper order. I've seen Black Widow before I saw falc+soldier.

Oh and speaking of Black Widow I guess.. It was ok. Somewhat disappointing. I liked the first part. In my opinion they should have gone full spy movie on this.. Bond (or Atomic Blonde if you will) with some Marvel action thrown in. The whole skybase thing didn't really suit it. It's a shame, I wish Black Widow and Scarlett got a proper sendoff, this isn't it. But I'm stoked about Florence Pugh and Julie Louis-Dreyfus being in the MCU.

 

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Fantastic (4) trailer.

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bob Contributor

bob

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Yeah I'm hyped.Too bad we need to sit out 2 other films first. :heh: I'm kidding, I'm slightly warming up to Eternals, and to lesser extent Shang Chi.
Apparently the leaked trailer from yesterday showed some other stuff, but I haven't seen it. This was apparently terrible footage from production shots, so I won't bother with it, glad I waited for the official one.
Edit:
Don't think I've commented on the series here. I've seen them all in almost 1 go. I don't think they're top quality, and I'm kind of annoyed I'm going to have to see them to get the full MCU story (although I've missed other stuff as well). I like 'm somewhat, but I don't think they work as standalone series or seasons. Wanda had some cool ideas, I genuinely laughed at the comedy bits. I loved the vibe of Loki the most. But I don't think any of them are particularly well written. Loki.. that's not a way to end the season. Cool setup for future MCU stuff? Sure, but an incredible annoying last episode, that was basically one big post/mid credit scene. I don't like a lot of character arcs. Falc+soldier was the worst for me, I don't like what they did to Sharon Carter, that makes no sense. New Captain America was also such a cool idea, but I don't think they got the most out of that character. Same for that terrorist group. I liked getting to see more of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, but I wasn't impressed by the overall story or the other character developments. In Wanda, Monica Rambeau's introduction felt forced and I didn't care about her at all.
I'll give Hawkeye a chance, as well as Loki S2 and the other new shows, but if they all fail to impress me I can imagine simply dropping watching the shows at some point. I'll just read the spoilers. So far, they've mostly been good for setting other stuff up, and some good character development / background info for most of the main characters.
Speaking of Hawkeye though, I must be in the minority who's seen Valentina's introduction in the proper order. I've seen Black Widow before I saw falc+soldier.
Oh and speaking of Black Widow I guess.. It was ok. Somewhat disappointing. I liked the first part. In my opinion they should have gone full spy movie on this.. Bond (or Atomic Blonde if you will) with some Marvel action thrown in. The whole skybase thing didn't really suit it. It's a shame, I wish Black Widow and Scarlett got a proper sendoff, this isn't it. But I'm stoked about Florence Pugh and Julie Louis-Dreyfus being in the MCU.
 
These are pretty much my thoughts, so can everyone pretend I wrote them?
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Sméagol Newbie

Sméagol

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It looks cool so far.

I have seen Bus Boy and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

While I think the film overall is marginally better than Black Widow, Marvel has done it again: it made me invested in characters I didn't care about previously.

What I liked:

  • Most characters
  • The addition of Kung Fu action. Only while actually watching the film I realized how much of a difference this made.
  • The Chinese flavour which felt genuine and not something thrown in to appease the Chinese market (althought that probably played a part :p)

What I didn't like:

  • Pacing
  • They could have done the Ta Lo part better.. Either do more with it, or less and emphasize the real world action, which to me was more interesting.
  • Some character developments
Spoiler

I was genuinly surprised at Ben Kingsly's appearance. While I think it's cool they acknowledge his history in the MCU, I didn't think the character worked in the film. He barely did anything of relevance in the film, and all his scenes were the ones were the pacing plummeted. Also mildly disappointed Tony leung's character immediately died, though it makes sense. Though thinking about it, his character didn't get a proper send-off in the film, which is weird. I also thought the sister's "turnabout" at the end was a bit "sudden". I mean, they did hint at it when she was introduced, but they ignored it for the rest of the film until the end. To me she was as much part of the action in Ta Lo as her brother was, but with the reveal at the end the action at Ta Lo felt a bit out of character in hindsight. And while I mostly liked the end battle, I thought it was disappointing they killed an apparently terrible godly being that had to be locked up behind a magical gate, with relative ease.

 

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Julius Mentor

Julius

Posted
Posted (edited)

X-Men's legendary animated series is coming back to Disney+ with a sequel series next year in X-Men '97!

And then onto the MCU and other Marvel stuff (a lot of it admittedly promoting things they told us about last year?):

New footage at the end of the Marvel Disney+ Day 2021 Special on Disney+ (only available for viewing by subscribers). 

Edited by Julius
Sméagol Newbie

Sméagol

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Watched Eternals 2 days ago. It's shit.

A lot of MCU films are mediocre, but they usually are at least somewhat entertaining, with some cool action, some funny lines, and cool characters. Shang Shi wasn't great, but I look forward to seeing those characters return.

Eternals.. Had none of that. The most retarded story, no cool action, no humour.. And most importantly.. No interesting characters whatsoever. I don't care about any of them. They should treat it the same way as they did with the Inhumans (I had to look that name up), pretend it never existed.

I guess it says a lot if even the credit scenes are annoying.

Julius Mentor

Julius

Posted
Posted (edited)

Official trailer for No Way Home:

Recently rewatched the Raimi trilogy, so it's fresh on my mind...there's no way they're going to bungle the handling of multiple antagonists in a single film again, right? Right? 

Spoiler

Having Otto say "You're not Peter Parker" has me hyped though. Tobey and Andrew inbound, surely? 

 

Edited by Julius
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MindFreak Explorer

MindFreak

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Posted

Watched Shang-Chi yesterday. Decent action movie with nice kung fu choreography and beautiful scenery but it the character itself is rather boring and didn't really need his own movie. The story was alright, the bad guy wasn't all bad which was nice.

bob Contributor

bob

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Watched Shang-Chi yesterday. Decent action movie with nice kung fu choreography and beautiful scenery but it the character itself is rather boring and didn't really need his own movie. The story was alright, the bad guy wasn't all bad which was nice.
I agree. You get a lot of his backstory, but by the end of the film you don't really know anything about Shang Chi - he doesn't really have a personality.

I also thought that the end was a bit disjointed from the rest of the film.

Most of the film was all martial arts, and I thought the end of the film would be some great fights between the main characters, but then bizarrely it ends with them riding on the back of a dragon fighting a giant demon. Really came out of nowhere, and didn't really fit imo

 

MindFreak Explorer

MindFreak

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15 minutes ago, bob said:

I agree. You get a lot of his backstory, but by the end of the film you don't really know anything about Shang Chi - he doesn't really have a personality.

I also thought that the end was a bit disjointed from the rest of the film.
 

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Most of the film was all martial arts, and I thought the end of the film would be some great fights between the main characters, but then bizarrely it ends with them riding on the back of a dragon fighting a giant demon. Really came out of nowhere, and didn't really fit imo

 

Spoiler

Yes, I agree with that. It was of course hinted at during the movie that there was a dragon hiding in Ta-Lo but it coming out to fight was a bit over the top - we hadn't heard about those demons until the very end of the movie. It was a nice scene with a lot of suspense but ultimately, it fell flat.

Also - why did Kate have to go with Shang-Chi and Wong in the mid-credit scene? Yeah, she shot an arrow and was a good driver but that shouldn't be enough to be let into The Avengers!

 

bob Contributor

bob

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Spoiler Yes, I agree with that. It was of course hinted at during the movie that there was a dragon hiding in Ta-Lo but it coming out to fight was a bit over the top - we hadn't heard about those demons until the very end of the movie. It was a nice scene with a lot of suspense but ultimately, it fell flat.
Also - why did Kate have to go with Shang-Chi and Wong in the mid-credit scene? Yeah, she shot an arrow and was a good driver but that shouldn't be enough to be let into The Avengers!
 
That's because Kate is Shang Chi's personality. She has all charm and character that he lacks. Together they make up a complete superhero.
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Happenstance Collaborator

Happenstance

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3 episodes in and I’m really enjoying Hawkeye so far. Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld are just perfect together. Renner’s acting while on the phone with his son in ep 3 was brilliant as well.

Spoiler

So I’m pretty sure the guy who squeezed Echo’s cheek when she was a kid learning to fight has to be Kingpin given the voice and suit so I can’t wait to see that reveal, most likely as the big boss.

 

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Julius Mentor

Julius

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Posted

Just got back from No Way Home...

Spoiler

...and I loved it. Favourite Tom Holland Spider-Man film by a loooooong shot. 

To get the bad out of the way: first 10-15 minutes is horrendously paced, and the first third to first half of the film feels like such a generic MCU film, even with the other villains turning up. It still has that humour I've found increasingly grating over the last few years. Not getting a reaction from Doc Ock to finding out that another Curtis Connors existed and became a giant lizard felt like a missed opportunity. 

The good? Honestly, almost all of the second half. Willem Dafoe probably gave my favourite performance of a villain in the MCU outside of Thanos; the jokes matched the tone of the film perfectly (in a way which felt distinctly different to the MCU); and, obviously, we got Andrew AND Tobey back (dude hasn't been in a film in a loooooong time, and this is how he returns?!)! I rewatched all of the Spider-Man films recently for the first time in a while, and while I love Andrew's take, Tobey's is the one I grew up on -- the toys, the VHS's, the DVD's, re-enacting scenes all of the time. Felt so good to see him back, and man the chemistry between those two and Tom was really something to behold, I absolutely loved it, and not to mention Elfman's Spider-Man Theme kicking in a few times (my favourite Spider-Man theme), goosebumps were absolutely everywhere.

They handled Andrew's Peter losing Gwen in a good way (personally I think him saving MJ could've been better if i) after Tom's Peter got knocked away we panned to see Andrew's Peter already diving, rather than reacting because he sees Tom can't get to her; and ii) giving a much more contrived but deserved scene similar to how Gwen died - tons more debris rather than just diving after and catching MJ - to show through actions that he's been thinking for a long time about what he could have done differently. I still enjoyed it, but I think it could have been even better I guess. And man, also hearing how rough things got for his Peter, and how he became rageful...it stung a bit, to be honest. 

I could gush about the other two showing up until the next Spider-Man film comes out, but honestly, what I really want to talk about is just how great a job Sony and Marvel have done at effectively resetting the MCU's Peter by the end of this film. Going into this I told my friends that Peter needs to lose something or someone - I said I could see Aunt May or Happy kicking the bucket, and to be fair I think how much May features in this signals early on that she's not making it - because the stakes just haven't felt that great in his own movies so far, and they surpassed my expectations. Peter loses everyone. He loses everything -- back to making his own suit, and a take on the classic one at that, rather than depending on Stark tech. My only real concern now that no-one knows Peter Parker is the possibility of the next villain learning who he is and using it as a threat against him, which would feel like a big step backwards if it were to happen too soon. 

We also got - for maybe the first time? - a scene which actually showcased Tom's acting ability at the end, the café scene was probably one of the best acted scenes in any of these Tom Holland Spider-Man films for me, it just gave them all more time to breathe. For the first time I actually liked Zendaya's acting in one of these films too, it's good to see them finally gel on-screen half as well as they do off it. 

Mid-credits: for a split second I thought that they brought Tom Hardy's Eddie over just for a bit of a laugh when he first vanished, so was over the moon at seeing a bit of the symbiote being left around. For me this is much better than Hardy's Venom sticking around, because there's so much context missing for Tom's Peter if he ran into him -- there isn't a relationship between him and this Eddie. So I'm glad we're (seemingly) going to get a new Eddie for the MCU. 

Post-credits: while I wasn't a fan of the trailer itself, what I am a fan of is marketing campaigns, and so I was rejoicing "FINALLY!" after realising that the post-credits scene was just a trailer for Multiverse of Madness. How Marvel hasn't done this before, I'm not sure. 

Hype levels: 10/10

Absolutely needs a second watch, though heading into the city centre to watch this on opening night is about as much as a risk as I'm willing to take -- might just need to wait until after the New Year once it's calmed down a lot, or wait for the home release. 

Go see this as soon as possible - before it gets spoiled for you - is my recommendation. 

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MindFreak Explorer

MindFreak

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9 hours ago, Julius said:

Just got back from No Way Home...

  No Way Home thoughts & spoilers (Reveal hidden contents)

...and I loved it. Favourite Tom Holland Spider-Man film by a loooooong shot. 

To get the bad out of the way: first 10-15 minutes is horrendously paced, and the first third to first half of the film feels like such a generic MCU film, even with the other villains turning up. It still has that humour I've found increasingly grating over the last few years. Not getting a reaction from Doc Ock to finding out that another Curtis Connors existed and became a giant lizard felt like a missed opportunity. 

The good? Honestly, almost all of the second half. Willem Dafoe probably gave my favourite performance of a villain in the MCU outside of Thanos; the jokes matched the tone of the film perfectly (in a way which felt distinctly different to the MCU); and, obviously, we got Andrew AND Tobey back (dude hasn't been in a film in a loooooong time, and this is how he returns?!)! I rewatched all of the Spider-Man films recently for the first time in a while, and while I love Andrew's take, Tobey's is the one I grew up on -- the toys, the VHS's, the DVD's, re-enacting scenes all of the time. Felt so good to see him back, and man the chemistry between those two and Tom was really something to behold, I absolutely loved it, and not to mention Elfman's Spider-Man Theme kicking in a few times (my favourite Spider-Man theme), goosebumps were absolutely everywhere.

They handled Andrew's Peter losing Gwen in a good way (personally I think him saving MJ could've been better if i) after Tom's Peter got knocked away we panned to see Andrew's Peter already diving, rather than reacting because he sees Tom can't get to her; and ii) giving a much more contrived but deserved scene similar to how Gwen died - tons more debris rather than just diving after and catching MJ - to show through actions that he's been thinking for a long time about what he could have done differently. I still enjoyed it, but I think it could have been even better I guess. And man, also hearing how rough things got for his Peter, and how he became rageful...it stung a bit, to be honest. 

I could gush about the other two showing up until the next Spider-Man film comes out, but honestly, what I really want to talk about is just how great a job Sony and Marvel have done at effectively resetting the MCU's Peter by the end of this film. Going into this I told my friends that Peter needs to lose something or someone - I said I could see Aunt May or Happy kicking the bucket, and to be fair I think how much May features in this signals early on that she's not making it - because the stakes just haven't felt that great in his own movies so far, and they surpassed my expectations. Peter loses everyone. He loses everything -- back to making his own suit, and a take on the classic one at that, rather than depending on Stark tech. My only real concern now that no-one knows Peter Parker is the possibility of the next villain learning who he is and using it as a threat against him, which would feel like a big step backwards if it were to happen too soon. 

We also got - for maybe the first time? - a scene which actually showcased Tom's acting ability at the end, the café scene was probably one of the best acted scenes in any of these Tom Holland Spider-Man films for me, it just gave them all more time to breathe. For the first time I actually liked Zendaya's acting in one of these films too, it's good to see them finally gel on-screen half as well as they do off it. 

Mid-credits: for a split second I thought that they brought Tom Hardy's Eddie over just for a bit of a laugh when he first vanished, so was over the moon at seeing a bit of the symbiote being left around. For me this is much better than Hardy's Venom sticking around, because there's so much context missing for Tom's Peter if he ran into him -- there isn't a relationship between him and this Eddie. So I'm glad we're (seemingly) going to get a new Eddie for the MCU. 

Post-credits: while I wasn't a fan of the trailer itself, what I am a fan of is marketing campaigns, and so I was rejoicing "FINALLY!" after realising that the post-credits scene was just a trailer for Multiverse of Madness. How Marvel hasn't done this before, I'm not sure. 

Hype levels: 10/10

Absolutely needs a second watch, though heading into the city centre to watch this on opening night is about as much as a risk as I'm willing to take -- might just need to wait until after the New Year once it's calmed down a lot, or wait for the home release. 

Go see this as soon as possible - before it gets spoiled for you - is my recommendation. 

You pretty much summed it for me as well. This was really amazing, enjoyed it so much.

Spoiler

Everything resetting in the end was so satisfying, finally we get the Spider-man that we know. Poor and alone, just wanting to do some good in the world. This is an interesting premise, and I look forward to seeing how he will show up in the MCU in the future now that he's not part of Avengers anymore. I also felt a bit relieved when he didn't get back together with MJ, and yes, it was a very well-acted scene.

Venom's coming! That was awesome! Also a bit glad that this isn't Hardy's Venom, as the Symbiote needs to attach to Peter first. How did it actually know that Peter Parker was Spider-man? Was that hinted at in the first movie? Or was that the post-credit scene from the second one?

Really enjoyed Garfield and Tobey in this, they integrated them very well into the story, though I wonder why Ned didn't just continue casting the spell until ALL Spider-men were there! 

Again.. great movie.

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